EM and FP

[cooldreams]

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How common is it for an EP also work as an FP or rather, have some sort of family practice, without haveing done an FP residency? Is it even legal?

 

[doc05]

I can't imagine why any EP would WANT to run a family practice? After all, one of the benefits of EM is the fact that you don't have your own patients!...

 

[fuegorama]

How common is it for an EP also work as an FP or rather, have some sort of family practice, without haveing done an FP residency? Is it even legal?

It's not directly germain to your question, but I think you might find some answers here;

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=103741&highlight=hayduke

 

[kungfufishing]

pardon my redundance, but I have to second the "why would you want to do that?"

 

[cooldreams]

well, maybe not a complete fp practice, but perhaps something interesting, i dont know, like omm on saturday mornings or something, or some rural type thing... that is something that is not completely seen in most ER's right? i am not trying to press the issue here, i am just curious if ppl do it or if it is even legal... i guess since you have a Do/MD anything is "legal" but getting malprac for it may be a prob...

something i did notice on that thread posted, they talk about FP's trying to get an EM cert, but here, i am coming from the other side... Em to get a FP fellowship cert... 😕

 

[cooldreams]

i dont really see that benefit of no regular patients as a good or bad thing... strong benefits to me are great teamwork, very broad knowledge base, fast work to keep ppl stable. i like a lot about a lot of different areas, but EM seems to incorporate nearly everything, and you dont get bored.

 

[grouptherapy]

i've heard of EPs getting out of the biz and retraining when they've had enough. whether they go into fp specifically, i couldn't tell you

 

[Willamette]

Back home in Oregon the EM docs ran a free clinic in the evenings (at a site separate from the hospital) for the less fortunate. It wasn't exactly FP, but it was pretty much primary care. If EM ends up being the way I go, I think that I'd like to be involved in something like that. It's true that one "upside" to being an EP is that you "don't have any patients." But it's also true that you aren't really "anyone's doctor" either, and I think that's something that I would miss.


Willamette

 

[DrQuinn]

Back home in Oregon the EM docs ran a free clinic in the evenings (at a site separate from the hospital) for the less fortunate. It wasn't exactly FP, but it was pretty much primary care. If EM ends up being the way I go, I think that I'd like to be involved in something like that. It's true that one "upside" to being an EP is that you "don't have any patients." But it's also true that you aren't really "anyone's doctor" either, and I think that's something that I would miss.


Willamette

You'll get your fair share of "frequently fliers." Most are bad, some are not. We had this one really unfortunate gentleman with the world's worst sickle cell anemia. We treated him like royalty. He's the only person I ever gave Demerol. He has subsequently passed.

Q

 

[Willamette]

You'll get your fair share of "frequently fliers." Most are bad, some are not. We had this one really unfortunate gentleman with the world's worst sickle cell anemia. We treated him like royalty. He's the only person I ever gave Demerol. He has subsequently passed.

Q

It's awesome to hear that not all "frequent fliers" are necessarily unpleasant. What the EP I shadowed really liked about working in this free-clinic one-evening-a-week was the fact that he could refer some of his frequent fliers there, and he also had the opportunity to intervene in the lives of some folks he could forsee becoming frequent fliers. This doc was truly a remarkable and caring man.


Willamette

 

[roja]

Questions like this always make me scratch my head and wonder. Have you done rotations in both fields? They are in no way the same thing. They each require a very different set of skills. They are not the same thing that simply operates in different settings.

Good FP's are very well trained in their field. they are qualified at managing chronic medical problems, handling check ups, arranging for appropriate screenign exams, giving vaccinations, doing routine GYN exams (if they want). They handle non-emergent problems such as sore throats, viral uri's etc.

They are not trained nor qualified to handle emergent airways, acute MI's, bacterial meningitis, etc etc.

While there is some overlap (they have to recognize the signs) and there is an element of primary care in the ED (due to lack of patient education and other social issues such as no insurance etc) I am not qualified to tweak hypertensive meds, do a pap smear, arrange for mammograms or give vaccinations. Nor do I want to be.

So if you want to be both a GOOD FP adn a GOOD EMP, you need to do BOTH residencies. These fields are not the same. If you truly find that long term patient relationships are important to you, then EM is not the field for you.

it was not vital for me and thus EM is a great field. I enjoyed the long term aspect of FP but it wasn't vital. And I found the tweaking etc to be rather dull.

 

[docB]

I have said before that an EM trained doc working in the primary care setting is just as inadvisable as a primary care trained doc working in the ED.